AGAINST SLEEP AND NIGHTMARE Quarterly

"To unite the most extreme, intelligent and effective elements - internationally"This is not meant to be one magazine among the idiotic jumble on
the rack. This is not to say its ideas are always instantly understandable
- just the opposite.There are two obvious ways our efforts can be misinterpreted. One
view might see us as simply issuing orders. We would then be either "obeyed"
without thought or rejected out of hand. A second view might see us as
part of "today's market place of ideas". We could then be mixed and matched
along with any other trendy idea, from "Deconstruction" to Christianity.
We know enough at least not to need any more academic discussions or talk
radio arguments.What we want to do instead is inspire people to act for themselves.
This is the only way a new society and new way of living can exist. We
do not want to recruit followers, people to merely listen to lectures and
sell papers. We want to talk to people who are willing to push things further.
Even the "revolutionaries", "Marxists", "Anarchists", "Communists", and
"mystics" of today can unconsciously support the conditions of this society
when they accept the present conditions of normal living.We start with an important belief; Given a new way of living, people
can liberate a tremendous store of intelligence, unused in this society.
For that reason, we wish to take the opposite tactic to propagandists,
who think that they can control people by merely hammering in one simple
point.This magazine is not easy reading. But it is intended to be understood
by those who put in the effort. It is the opposite of the careful sermons
put out by mealy-mouthed "responsible commentators". We are willing to
jump to conclusions, to hold ideas "without proof", to let our ideas get
mad or get even. The play of ideas is one important method.If we don't write the same easy narratives on oppression featured
in free "progressive" papers like the LA weekly, it is not just because
this kind of article accomplishes relatively little but because writing
like this could lead to our recuperation as journalists in training. The
magazine Processed World is an example of this danger (though this is not
a perfect example since that group was fairly insincere from the beginning).Against Sleep and Nightmare is written and published by one person.
Through out most of the articles I will be speaking as "we". This is to
represent the views of myself and known and unknown sympathizers. While
the difficulties of a single person tendency are many, they are not what
might be imagined. The micro-groups that do exist on the extreme left tend
to have almost no activity besides publication. The process of publication
itself tends to be dominated by an even smaller group, often one person.
I have undertaken this project as an alternative to such a situation, a
situation which reproduces the order of the society which these groups
claim to oppose.Against Sleep and Nightmare is intended to supersede itself. My
hope is to form a coherent group, one that will form a publication that
can equally involve all of our efforts (although we will not compromise
our methods to attain this goal).